#78 | Quit your job
"…spend [life] trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances." ― Anne Lamott.
"Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof." ― Alice Walker
A few friends have been battling whether to take jobs recently or leave their current ones. My advice is typically to quit and move on to the next thing. This is because it's the path I've trodden, so the risk has lost its bite, but it's also because I think it's the right thing to do. It's sometimes time to mix things up when you're feeling a bit hopeless about the status quo (and when you feel it's like crawling under barbed wire, through mud and piss). When people say they've left their job or say no to some fabulously corporate opportunity, I jump up and say congratulations! I cheer for them because it's hard to tack upwind, swim upstream, and proudly shake one's tail feathers. This is a conversation I have a lot; I end up boring people at the most inopportune times (on the bus, during a work call, etc.).
I've had a couple of experiences of quitting jobs. After university, I went to join a real estate consultancy on Baker Street in London. There were perks to the job: there was good coffee downstairs, the pay was good, but primarily it was easy. At 4 pm, we'd decamp from our fifth four offices to the Barley Mow and 'network' three times a week. I later discovered networking was a mispronunciation of Not Working; we sat, talked about the 'market', and compared our ties which each had little animals on—with our TM Lewin shirts with their cut-back collars. Our Oxford brogues were clean, and our suits were immaculate. We each leaned against the bar laughing, saying hi Charles hi Richard hi Hugo to each other and laughing more. Because everyone was Not Working around us, or the work happened in the pub (I never knew how), we all managed to do rather well. Even if the valuation reports sat unwritten on our desktops, we missed targets, yet no one cared. This was all around when I decided it would be good to stop drinking and start living. It became apparent that work, whether at my desk or The Barley Mow, was not conducive to starting to live, as I began to frame it, so it was time to quit my job.
As soon as the idea of leaving consultancy flamed in my mind, it became impossible to ignore. There's this incredible sense of possibility: I can do anything, so what shall I do? The rather disturbing problem was that leaving consultancy meant sacrificing my professional qualifications. After three years of university and eighteen months in work, I'd committed a 22% of my life to securing a certificate. Getting them, I was told, unlocked a lifetime of professional security—I'd never have to worry about being a bum again. And I was only six months away from the final exams, so I might as well stick it out. I could have done, too, but as I said, the idea of change was glowing in the back of my head like the sun, and my subconscious then x-rayed everything I saw: 'yes, I could be a baker', or 'maybe a fireman is for me?' At that point, I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was, I thought it was French for something before the main course, so I did not see those opportunities.
My subconscious (and good friend Alex) rustled up a fantastic opportunity shortly after realising I wanted to stop going to the Barley Mow and start living. After losing touch for five years, we had lunch, and he pitched me the startup he was working on. This pitch deck was my out! My ticket to the other side; my opportunity to tread my path. I did the interview, and they offered me the job more out of their desperation than my qualification.
With my heart pumping, I proudly asked to have breakfast with my consultancy boss 'asap—it's important!'. I told him over eggs benedict; he encouraged me to spread these little wings, which I did, and I handed in my notice immediately. After that, one of the directors told me I was making a 'grave grave mistake' and that I 'didn't know how the market would turn' (neither did he, frankly).
A month later, I started my new job with a spring in my step—but not too much of a spring, because the ceiling where my desk was was only 4.5 ft off the floor, as we were working where the filing cabinets lived. Nevertheless, life became an adventure from that point on because my future was not pre-ordained. The startup could conceivably go pop at any moment. We may be forced to change direction later. We had energy because it became a life-or-death economic race to build something unique. I loved it.
After three years, however, we sold a big chunk of the startup, and I discovered what an entrepreneur was, and I wanted to be one. It seemed fun and impactful. I was always good at disappearing into the back of my head in a kind of daydream, so if I could take what I thought about and apply it in the real world, I'd be, I assumed, a passable entrepreneur. With that thesis, I began to look at ideas, and the vast numbers of very old people without adequate housing seemed a very big problem. So some colleagues and I started a retirement living business.
It became time to quit again, which I did without knowing how to afford to live; we had to do speculative planning work on development sites we didn't own (with money we didn't have). So I quit and stepped into the unknown because life often doesn't move forward until we make irreversible decisions. This time the irreversible decision moved my little pawn forward a square or two.
This decision was three years before I'd discovered The Lean Startup, so we were pretty audacious. Why build five retirement living units when we could build fifty, or an order of magnitude more still? It made some sense to me (and still does), but not to investors. We struggled to raise money and never did! I was jobless and, for a time, penniless. But I was, finally, an entrepreneur!
Since then, I've been an entrepreneur doing one thing or another, and it's been fun. I've lived on the edge of what I've been able to do. I've been forced (at times out of desperation) to live at the periphery of what I expected. It's made it possible for me to live in Istanbul, then in Kenya, which I would not have expected if you'd asked me six years ago, over a Camden Pale Ale at the Barley Mow. (Even if I did have little elephants on my tie). It's allowed me to breathe when things feel like a lot and look pragmatically at all the options I'm lucky enough to have. It can be scary, and no parent ever gives this advice, but they are scared for you; they are not excited. If you quit your job, you'll have lots more opportunities to look at and reflect on. You can become a fireman! Or a potter. You'll be able to invent yourself, just like one of Michaelangelo's sculptures. Living on the edge of ourselves is the most incredible opportunity to be excited. So quit.
My week in books
I was in a cabin, so it's been a good week for reading.
Napoleon by Andrew Roberts. Napoleon was great! Yes, his wars (which bear his name) cost three million lives, but his policy was broadly progressive for his time. He was ambitious, had exceptional energy, and was hilarious. An outstanding book recommended by Hector 🔥 Link.
Anything We Love Can Be Saved by Alice Walker. This is spectacular. Alice makes a tremendous and positive impact on the world through the writing of novels, essays, and poetry. Her mission is penned: "It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of our world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile. In this regard, I have a story to tell." Thank you to Giulia for the recommendation 🔥 Link.
Montaigne by Stefan Zweig. Montaigne locks himself in a tower in the 1600s for a decade and realises there is no salvation from the human condition by being alone. We just get frustrated by different things. Want to get away from the world? Read this; there is no escape. Link.
The Precipice by Toby Ord. Speaking of escaping, there is also no escape from the existential risks that Ord tells us about. This is the first time in our history that we have the technology to destroy ourselves, yet we're not mature enough to protect ourselves from it. He surmises that next century, and for each after that, we have 1/6 odds of going extinct. If we want to work on meaningful things, work on AI alignment and solutions to nuclear holocaust. Recommended for those who've just quit their jobs. Link.
Live well,
Hector